


A Remarkable Resemblance

by SleepsWithCoyotes



Series: Mascotverse [8]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, Not Crisis Core Compliant, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 09:06:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10434246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepsWithCoyotes/pseuds/SleepsWithCoyotes
Summary: In which Zack convinces Sephiroth to do thatthinghe does. No, no, the other one.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Archiving old fic from 2006!
> 
> If you've never summoned Odin in the original game, you should do so at least once. The first time I saw it, I laughed myself sick...for reasons which will soon be made clear.

It was partly rotation and partly luck--that was what Cloud told himself, anyway, because he didn't think even Zack had the kind of sneakiness it would've taken to arrange something like this. Not that it wasn't an honor for Cloud's unit to be the ones chosen to accompany General Sephiroth on a field mission, because it was. It was a _huge_ honor. It just seemed a little too...convenient.

Which probably meant that Zack was plotting something, and Cloud wished now that he'd kept his mouth shut.

"You're teaching the general to play _what_?" he'd all but yelled just days before, sitting on the floor of his friend's private room and staring incredulously as Zack grinned and dealt out a hand of cards with quick, confident flicks of his hand.

"Nah--I'm teaching him to play poker. Playing 'what' is for advanced students, and he hasn't quite leveled up to that point yet."

"But...I thought he was mad at you. I mean...don't you remember the lecture he gave you for being drunk?" Cloud certainly remembered--he'd been the one holding Zack up while the general was delivering it.

"What, that? Don't worry about it; he was just giving me a hard time. It's not like I'd ever be drunk on _duty._ He knows that."

"Oh," Cloud had said, hoping Zack was right and feeling silly for worrying about him. "It's lucky you're friends, then."

Had he said that too wistfully? He hadn't been hinting, honest, because it was cool enough that _Zack_ wanted to talk to him--Zack who'd gotten into SOLDIER without half trying, who'd been promoted to First Class so fast it made Cloud's head spin to think of it. The only thing that kept him from being mortified over the possibility that Zack might have taken pity on him and set all this up was the fact that there were easier ways to go about introducing someone.

Rumbling low and constant under every sound was the deep hum of the ocean, the occasional boom and hiss of the surf an eccentric counterpoint to the tramp of marching feet, the scrabble of chocobo claws on loose footing. They were above the waterline, at least, past the beach and into the sandy hills beyond: not quite as dead as the empty lands that surrounded Midgar, but a little desolate all the same. Cloud felt the tall sea-grass catch at his legs with every step, kept his hands and his rifle up, and tried desperately to look confident and reliable. The fact that the same expression was plastered on every face around him made him feel marginally better about it.

When Sephiroth reined in his mount, the black chocobo stood like a statue, gleaming and arrogant, not a feather out of place. Cloud almost missed the general's raised hand, the silent signal to stop, but this was _Sephiroth,_ and not even a chocobo that fine could distract him for long. Lieutenant Graf's mount sidestepped and ruffled its feathers, trying to edge its way closer to the birds the two SOLDIERs had brought. Currently riderless, Zack's white hen tried to rip the reins out of Zack's fist to peck some pride into the lieutenant's yellow, but the other bird, a pale rose completely at odds with its hulking size, stood with the indifference of a wall, lazily raising one foot to flex its claws, its equally massive rider balanced unconcernedly on its back.

"Lieutenant," Sephiroth said quietly, and Cloud had to push away a confusing sense of awe, the deep, cultured purr of the general's voice sending shivers down his spine. "Take half the unit and circle around to those rocks," he said, nodding at a point some thirty meters distant where a tumble of black stone had long ago been washed up or ground down from something larger. "Circle wide. The creature we're looking for is there."

"Er...there, sir?" the lieutenant asked, jerking on his chocobo's reins as he scanned the rocks with a dubious eye.

"In the earth," Sephiroth said, and the lieutenant--along with everyone else--shifted his eyes down to the clear space between, seeing nothing but sand and dirt and a few stray tufts of razor-edged grass.

"Yes, sir," Graf said, wise enough not to argue, and...maybe it was Cloud's imagination, but he'd swear that Graf looked right _at_ him--and then ordered the second squad to move out, leaving Cloud's squad behind.

"Titus. Go with him," Sephiroth ordered, and the second SOLDIER snapped a silent salute and nudged his chocobo to follow.

"So," Zack said, throwing an arm over his chocobo's back in a comfortable lean and tilting his head up to grin at Sephiroth. "I guess it's something big, huh?"

Skadi turned her head to eye her rider with a long-suffering look that Cloud found oddly familiar, but all she did was clack her beak once in the general vicinity of Zack's nose before turning her attention back to the loose earth before them. Sephiroth, on the other hand, gave him a mild look as if to say he knew Zack must be forgetting basic military courtesy for a reason, and that he hoped it was a good one.

Maybe whatever made people SOLDIERs caused massive, incurable brain damage. It wasn't very likely, but it was the best explanation Cloud had for Zack's irreverence and complete lack of fear.

"Yes," Sephiroth said after a pointed delay. "It's certainly big enough to warrant investigation."

"Well, then--that sounds like a job for General Sephiroth!" Cloud must've made some noise then--an indrawn breath or a muffled protest--because Zack glanced over at him and grinned even wider. "Isn't that right, Cloud?"

"Are y-- _no,_ sir," he managed, horrified and...and...'betrayed' seemed like a good word, though he hadn't yet worked out why.

And Sephiroth was staring at him in bemusement, like Cloud was a puzzle and perhaps needed to be poked a few times before he'd make any sense. "Why not, Private?" Sephiroth asked, and Cloud wished the monster would hurry up and attack, and maybe swallow him if the gods were feeling merciful.

"Sir! It's--" His eyes wavered helplessly to Zack, but there was no help there; Zack was grinning at him the way he did when Cloud walked right into one of his plots, and even the bastard's chocobo was giving him a pitying look. He heard a few rustles behind him, the jingle of rifle straps and the scuffed feet other soldiers shifting uncomfortably, but he knew he was on his own. "Of course you could handle it by yourself, sir," Cloud managed at last, dragging his eyes back to Sephiroth's even though his face was flaming, his mouth dry. "But that's what we're here for. To...."

Gods, it sounded stupid to say they were here to protect him. No one protected General Sephiroth. He didn't _need_ it. The soldiers he traveled with were only there to keep him from being mobbed by the curious; the _real_ SOLDIERs with him could watch his back against anything else.

It just seemed wrong to count on one man to fight all your battles for you, and it bothered him that Zack didn't see that.

"Yeah, but the general here could do that _thing,"_ Zack said in a sly tone that surprised Cloud. "You know...that _thing_ he does. That no one seems to want to teach me."

It was _not_ Cloud's imagination. The corners of Sephiroth's mouth actually quirked up as he glanced back at Zack, like he was trying not to smile. "Perhaps because the idea of you being able to summon minions is terrifying beyond the ability to express," Sephiroth replied solemnly, and Cloud got it all at once. This wasn't Zack leaning unfairly on the general; this was an interrupted conversation being played out for an audience.

"Aw, c'mon--you know I only use my powers for good. And anyway, the one they let me try must've been busted. All I got was one measly frog. Count it. _One."_

"And I suppose you were aiming for a horde."

It was the sheer lack of surprise in Sephiroth's voice that made Cloud feel a sudden, overwhelming sense of kinship with the general, that and the way Zack's chocobo turned the same pitying look Sephiroth's way.

"Well," Zack said modestly, "it _was_ the President's birthday. So, will you do it?"

Sephiroth sighed, and Cloud felt for him, he really did. "Let me see if I have this straight. You'd like for me to expend a senseless amount of power to summon a creature far stronger than what is needed for the situation in order to completely crush one rather oversized but at best troublesome monster so that you may watch and hopefully learn how to summon a horde of frogs for nefarious purposes. Is that essentially correct?"

"Well...if you could also show me how to make them rain from the sky, that'd be even better."

Sephiroth's reply--if, indeed, he intended to _dignify_ that with a reply--was lost as Lieutenant Graf's chocobo whistled a shrill warning and fluffed its feathers out like a yellow puffball.

When the ground started shuddering beneath his feet, Cloud was torn for a breathless minute as his brain said _monster_ and his instincts screamed _earthquake._ He was too busy bracing himself to notice what the rest of the unit was doing, but Zack and Sephiroth were between him and the sandy plain Sephiroth had tracked their monster to, and some part of him noted hopelessly how easily Zack kept his feet and Sephiroth his seat until the monster itself stole all his attention.

The first coil heaved itself up in a shower of sandy earth, powdery-tan scales fronded with whip-thin spines he'd taken for more of the sharp grass that grew above the beach. One entire section of the plain seemed to be sinking, the dirt rippling and then falling inward like a collapsing dune, more coils and great scything fins thrashing to life as the sand serpent dug itself out of its camouflage. It seemed to take years before the head emerged, and Cloud had only the briefest impression of a broad skull and a long, dragonish snout before the thing's mouth opened on a deafening shriek, exposing more teeth than Cloud had ever seen in his life.

"Or something like that," Zack was saying, rueful admiration in his voice. "Why can't I have a summon materia like _that?"_

Sephiroth was looking at the monster, not Zack. "First you have to prove you can handle the frog."

"Handle the--wait a minute. You _do_ know that kind of frog is called a 'Touch Me,' right?"

The sand serpent had started to glow a brassy gold that made Cloud want to get between or maybe in _front_ of the two men between him and it...only Sephiroth was smiling, faint but real.

"Indeed. I questioned the wisdom of your being trained with such a materia until they explained it was a summon."

Cloud had never seen Zack struck speechless before, but there was no time to savor the sight. The serpent was rearing back its head, jaws gaping wide on a gathering ball of fire that poured up from its gullet, quickly reaching critical mass.

Maybe Zack saw what Sephiroth did next, but Cloud certainly missed it. Sephiroth's gloved hand rested lightly on the hilt of his sword, but he didn't draw it; instead a shining ripple of red shimmered down its sheathed length, and Sephiroth himself seemed to disappear in the power of what he called.

Smears of non-colors, grey and black and silver, rose up through the air around Sephiroth and eclipsed him completely, ghost-fires that swirled and clung and twisted into the shape of an armored man on a horse. The rider's face was hidden by a horned helm, but any child anywhere in the world would have recognized the grey steed, the spiked coxcomb of its stiff black mane, its eight churning legs as it leaped forward at a touch of the rider's heels.

Cloud forgot the rifle clutched in his hands, forgot Zack's dumbfounded but oddly happy look, forgot the serpent that was about to fry them all. That was _Odin._ Sephiroth had summoned _Odin,_ one of the _gods,_ and Odin was doing his bidding.

Spitting a boiling streak of fire, the sand serpent coiled up and lunged left, heading inland, not seaward. It would have slithered right over the lieutenant and his men if it had reached that far, but Odin's vast spear swept out and scattered the bolt of fire to sparks, Sleipnir's hooves shivering the earth as it caught up with the serpent. Between one stride and the next, Odin's spear was thrust down to bore through the serpent's skull with a sickening crunch, the monster's coils heaving to a stop like a train derailed.

Cloud expected the sand serpent's death throes to be as dangerous as its living attacks, but it was still half-buried in the loose earth, and the heavy spear held its head pinned to the ground through the worst of the thrashing. By the time it was reduced to the twitching of dead reflex, the specter of Odin was fading, colors and substance bleeding away to empty air.

"Now that," Zack said in the silence that followed, "was impressive. Not quite as impressive as a rain of Touch Me's," he added with a grin, "but then again, what is?"

Cloud got the feeling they weren't talking about frogs anymore.

Sephiroth seemed to agree. Sighing faintly, he removed his hand from his sword, shook his head at Zack, and glanced back at the men, eyeing Cloud resignedly as if he expected mockery from that quarter as well.

Cloud's awed expression must have been reassuring.

"Form up," Sephiroth ordered, turning around in the saddle to watch the lieutenant try to convince his chocobo that it was safe to return. "We'll check the rest of the shoreline for other disturbances before we fall back to Kalm."

The rest of the sweep was routine, Lieutenant Graf and the second SOLDIER taking one arc of beach, Sephiroth and Zack leading the other patrol. Cloud suspected the long-suffering expression of Zack's chocobo stemmed from the fact that Zack wouldn't stay put; he kept riding forward to talk to Sephiroth and then hanging back to talk to Cloud. She even nipped Cloud's ear once--not very hard, at least--as if she blamed him for being on foot and not decently mounted.

Returning to Kalm was something of a relief, all things considered. He kept waiting for the general to lose patience with one or both of them, and the lieutenant wore a sour look when he met them at the edge of town that didn't bode well for either Cloud or Graf's bird. The fact that Zack was still ambling along at Cloud's side as they made their way back to the inn they'd taken as a field headquarters was probably the only thing that saved him from being detailed to muck out the stables. Sergeant Mulvaney's bawled "Dis _missed!"_ had never sounded so welcome.

"So?" Zack asked, nudging him in the ribs as the rest of the unit scrambled to get out of the lieutenant's way. They were overnighting in Kalm, at least, which gave the lieutenant an entire evening to recover from the embarrassment of his nonexistent riding skills, though it didn't offer many places to hide.

"So what?" Cloud asked, finding that his feet had matched themselves to Zack's course without even an arm looped around his neck to drag him there. Skadi eyed him from over Zack's head, but as long as Zack was walking too, she didn't seem inclined to take offense.

"So what did you think of Sephiroth's summon? Better than a rain of frogs?" Zack asked, grinning as he steered them towards the stables.

Cloud had to laugh, shaking his head. "Sorry, Zack--summoning a god pretty much beats the hell out of frogs."

"Yeah. I didn't even know he had that one on him," Zack admitted sheepishly, scrubbing the hand that held the reins through his own hair, which was already so spiky--even worse than Cloud's--it made no noticeable difference. "Still...pretty cool, huh?"

"Yeah," Cloud said, and then his mouth just ran away with him the way it always seemed to do around Zack, and he heard himself say, "it reminded me of you."

He wasn't exactly sure why that made Zack stand up straighter or what the oddly surprised smile that stole slowly over Zack's face meant. Zack's voice was weird enough, a little gruff but softer than usual as he said, "Aw, quit with the flattery; you're making me blush, here." Cloud would have paid good gil to see that, but even though Zack wasn't blushing by a long shot, something had him grinning like he'd been given another promotion.

When Zack clapped his hands together sharply, it made both Cloud and the chocobo jump.

"All right! When we get back to base, I'm going to give those summoning lessons my all! Frogs are just the beginning!"

"Oh, man. Is it too late to get transferred to Junon?" Cloud asked, only half joking.

"Just try it and see how far you get," Zack said with a laugh, reaching out to ruffle Cloud's hair. "Anyway, let me stable Skadi, and how about we scare up enough people for a game of poker? Friendly stakes, say...a bit of elbow grease and a bucket of boot polish?"

"Dream _on,"_ Cloud grumbled, ducking away from Zack's hand. "Your boots are still polished from the last time we played."

He still waited when Zack disappeared inside the stable, though he would have sworn he never used to be a masochist.

Leaning against the open stable door, he was listening to the squawks and chirps of the chocobos and breathing in the comforting scents of fresh straw and cut greens when a voice from behind nearly startled him out of his skin.

"Did you mean it?"

Cloud tried to tell himself that he didn't know that voice, that he hadn't branded it into his mind over the course of the day, but when he turned slowly around to look, it was still General Sephiroth standing there behind him, the reins of his black chocobo held loosely in his fist.

"Sir?" he asked, wracking his mind for anything he might have said that--oh gods, did the general think Cloud didn't consider him capable of looking after himself? He didn't look _angry,_ at least, merely curious, though the expression was so detached, so....guarded, perhaps, that Cloud wasn't entirely certain he was reading the man correctly. Not that it mattered when Cloud had been an _idiot,_ but--

"That Odin reminds you of Zack," Sephiroth asked before Cloud could stammer out an apology, and that confused him so much, he answered without thinking.

"Not Odin, sir," he said, and blushed hotly when the general's curious look only deepened. It was really just amazing how he couldn't _shut up_ around Sephiroth, because his mouth was opening again and he knew exactly what was going to come out. "His horse."

"His...horse?" Sephiroth looked confused at first, but then something seemed to click, and--Cloud really wished Zack would come along and put him in a headlock again, because he didn't seem able to help himself.

"Yes, sir. Don't you think its mane looks just like Zack's hair?"

He was expecting...he didn't know what he was expecting. Disapproval, maybe, for a lack of respect to a higher-ranking soldier. Perhaps a blank look and to be told that no, Sleipnir's spiky black mane in no way resembled Zack's. Maybe to be brushed off as someone too frivolous to converse with.

He wasn't expecting the general to smile, slow and quiet, like he didn't do it very often, or for his eyes to lighten or maybe relax. It was the look he'd given Zack when they'd been arguing about the frogs, but Cloud had never thought--not in a million years--that he'd ever be given that same look himself.

"Indeed," Sephiroth said, and, " _thank_ you," before he led his chocobo in, which worried Cloud...it worried him a lot. Not that Zack didn't deserve whatever payback Cloud had just let him in for, but it was the principle of the thing. He was pretty sure that telling your best friend's commanding officer that he looked like the front end of a horse--even a divine one--was something you ought to feel guilty for, no matter how many times he fucked up your hair. On the other hand, when the commanding officer in question also happened to be a friend of said best friend, perhaps that qualified as mitigating circumstances.

Besides, he'd just been thanked by General Sephiroth himself, and he didn't think anyone would blame him too much if he simply enjoyed that for a while.

Just in case, though, he was still standing there five minutes later, and that was when he heard Zack start to laugh, that special one he had when he was laughing at himself, pleased and impressed and not angry at all.

Cloud grinned. So maybe that was all right, then.


End file.
